First Look: Fall 2024 Anime Overview: Dandadan (Patreon)

Premise: Momo Ayase, a tough gyaru, sticks up for a bullied, occult obsessed boy she nicknames Okarun and they strike up a friendship.  Okarun is obsessed with aliens but scoffs at spirits, meanwhile Momo believes in spirits but not aliens. The two decided to bet on who’s right. Momo has to explore a building where aliens were sighted, and Okarun has to explore a tunnel where a yokai named Turbo Granny was spotted. Unfortunately, they’re both right, meaning Momo Is abducted by aliens and Okarun is cursed by Turbo Granny. Momo awakens some cool powers, but Okarun’s curse is a lot less cool. He transforms into a dangerous and hard to control monster form, and Turbo Granny also literally stole his balls. Now the two have to deal with both aliens and yokai coming after them, as they try to figure out a way to undo the curse on Okarun. 

Dandadan, oh Dandadan…like a lot of battle shonen, there are things I really love about it and things that make it so hard to recommend. The ratio of things I love is way higher than most battle shonen right now though, which just makes the uncomfortable stuff that does not need to be there sting even more. 

Dandadan is an anime bursting with absurd action and humor, creativity, a boppin’ soundtrack and amazing animation from Science Saru. The bombastic fight scenes, hype moments, and the fun concept aliens and yokai alike terrorizing our heroes—it’s wildly weird in the best way, and also wildly entertaining. It’s funny and absurd, but also has real heart.

The series also tends to show empathy and care with its antagonists, with an underlying theme of not fearing the unknown or those different from you. It’s shown in how Momo and Okarun sympathize with and understand their foes and how how both kids come to understand each other and find common ground despite having different social positions and dispositions. Even the yokai and aliens Live in a Society—the alien salaryman is being crushed by capitalism just like us, the yokai are borne from tragedies that humans experience... Dandadan says that by connecting with each other, maybe we can help that society become a little better. 

But the part of the series I enjoy most is the characters—they’re all incredibly lovable and fun to watch. They are absolute losers in the most endearing way, and I love all the girls, from the completely delusional and ridiculous human disaster Aira, Momo’s badass grandma, and the completely rancid and awful Turbo Granny, who falls victim to one of my favorite antagonist tropes (villain is depowered or bound in some way and forced to live with the heroes, remains utterly horrible but also pathetic and weirdly helpful, and is slowly getting on better terms with everyone). The comedy of the series is also wonderful, and the strong characters enhance it.

(Now, do I wish that Momo’s grandma was actually allowed to have a wrinkle or two instead of this coward shit where she looks like she’s twenty, and no matter what justification you throw at me, come on, we’ve all seen enough battle shonen to know she looks young because old women who look their age clearly can’t be hot and we need her to be hot.)

But our leads are even more loveable. Shy otaku Okarun is a very sweet boy who genuinely respects Momo (but it also capable of arguing with her like a twelve year old), and that makes the clear romantic developments between them easy to root for. He’s very fun to watch, and it’s cute to see him slowly grow his confidence as he makes friends for the first time

And Momo…I adore Momo particularly with all my heart and soul. She’s hilarious, she’s loud and brash, she's a rebel, she’s badass, she’s flawed and awkward and messy, she’s super smart in unconventional ways, she’s bursting with compassion, she's a weirdo who has a ridiculous crush on a 1950’s movie star…every second she’s on screen is a delight.

 And unlike most battle shonen, the series actually treats her as an equal protagonist to the male lead, in screentime, characterization, and yes, even in fighting. This should not be so rare in shonen, but it is, and holy shit is it satisfying to see Momo get to kick enormous amounts of ass, take hits, and triumph just as much as shonen boys. She dominates every scene she’s in, and she’s tough as hell. Right now she’s actually way more competent in battle than Okarun. She’s definitely better at tactics and strategy than him, actually, which is refreshing to see with their archetypes. The gyaru is the tactical genius and the nerdy boy is the one who relies on her brains. (There’s actually no indication so far that Okarun does well academically. He just knows everything about aliens)

Okarun will almost certainly catch up, but I’ve been told Momo never loses her importance or gets overshadowed, and I sincerely hope that’s true.

 There’s already a good sign in that department: A male shonen protagonist feeling ashamed because a girl saved him and is more competent than him in battle is a common trope--and the result is inevitably that the guy trains and quickly shoots past her in power, and she becomes the one who needs to regularly be saved and/or is reduced to a supporting role. So it’s a good sign that when Okarun is ashamed of how often Momo has to rescue him, this does not happen. He does start getting moments where he saves Momo, but she’ll save him back, and the show treats them as a team of equals.

So yeah, I love Momo with all my heart and I love how the show lets her actually be a main character and doesn’t treat her differently from Okarun in that respect. It's not surprising to learn Momo was originally the only main character.

But all this makes the show’s insistence on constantly putting her in sexual peril even worse.

Momo is put in sexual peril three times over the course of twelve episodes. That is…an extremely high ratio. The first one was in episode one, when the hoary old trope of aliens wanting to impregnate humans happens. She does escape and triumph, but this unsurprisingly turned off a lot of viewers. While it’s definitely not the most intense fanservice I’ve seen and I can sort of understand  the people who claim there’s no fanservice at all since it’s a bit understated, there is a slow pan up underwear-clad body when she’s awakening the skill she needs to escape. There were a lot of fans who assured me something this bad never happens again, and what I didn’t realize is “as bad as this” is pretty subjective. Nor did I realize that this would be a pattern, and things like this would continue happening to Momo with relative frequency. 

There’s a brief moment where Okarun, possessed by the spirit of the yokai Turbo Granny, grabs an unconscious Momo’s leg and we briefly see a POV shot that looks up Momo’s skirt. This scene was actually MUCH worse in the manga, so I have to give the anime props for changing that. Unlike the incident with the aliens though, this moment serves absolutely no function in the plot.

In fact, it’s a real what the fuck moment that contradicts what else we know about the character in question. Why would Turbo Granny, who's supposedly here because of the souls of tons of murdered sa victims, casually violate Momo like that? Or since she’s possessing Okarun, are we supposed to believe it was the Okarun part that assaulted Momo? Because wow, that’s even worse! But seriously what is the series trying to say with that, about Turbo Granny, about Okarun, about...anything? Absolutely nothing apparently, because no one ever comments on it again, it's like the author didn't even bother to think it through. There was no reason it needed to be there, Turbo Grannykarun could have just tried to eat Momo instead and the danger would be the same.

Which brings up a real contrast in the series: both female yokai we see have tragic backstories involving SA and violence against women. There is an absolutely beautifully realized and directed episode where we see one yokai’s backstory as a struggling single mother who did sex work among other jobs to provide for herself and her daughter, but then everything goes to shit. It’s absolutely heart wrenching, and one thing I can definitively praise about the show is how it makes sure to focus on women and their feelings during these stories- Momo and Aira are the ones who emphasize the most with these women, who grieve them and help them find release. It shows women making their best out of cruel world, extending kindness and support to each other.

Which makes it so friggin’ jarring that the same series uses sexual assault so casually as a plot device. The last instance it’s used in the series is the most uncomfortable for me. even though it’s not as (or at all) voyeuristic as the aliens one. Which may have been because I was warned about one and not the other. But the stuff in episode one was so absurd, something that could never happen to anyone in real life, it was very divorced from reality.

The scene at the end of the season, though, is something that could absolutely happen to a woman in real life. Five men cornered a young woman in the co-ed hot springs and basically threatened gang-rape. This isn’t absurd at all, this is heartwrenchingly realistic. And the story knows this- the men reference what I assume is a irl term/slang for male predators who assault women at co-ed hot springs. Momo having to tensely strategize on how she can escape while completely vulnerable and even light headed from being in the water too long made my stomach turn. Because I could imagine myself or another girl in that situation, there certainly have been girls in that situation, and I hated seeing her in this situation.

The anime makes this significantly worse by, for some ungodly reason, deciding to make “will Momo be raped by these guys” an end of season cliffhanger, with the last shot being a man grabbing her by the throat and forcing her underwater, and I guess we won’t see that resolved for six months. The cliffhanger is completely on the anime. In the original manga this wasn't a cliffhanger, and it got resolved immediately after the moment they chose to leave off on, with Momo escaping, of course. For the record, she also wasn’t forced underwater in the manga, the guy just grabbed her wrists before immediately being forced to let go in the next panel.

I can see why this wouldn’t stick out as much to manga readers, but the additional focus on this moment it really ends the season on a sour note, and reading the manga chapter, I know the series is once again going to move on like nothing happened after this. I’m not saying I want Momo to be severely traumatized and devote episodes to her despair. I don’t want that in my silly shonen action show, I want Momo to be treated like any other hero. But she isn’t being treated like any other hero. She’s being repeatedly subjected to sexual peril.

(To be fair, Okarun does lose his clothes thanks to the aliens too at one point, but it’s very unclear if that was something they intended (I think it wasn’t?), nor is it framed as intentional and threatening and sexual as what happened to Momo, it doesn’t evoke any fear he’ll be raped, Okarun’s body is framed extremely neutrally- obviously I don’t think that makes it okay the show did that to him. But there’s a stark difference in how this a pattern for Momo and not Okarun)

Why is the sexual threat to Momo reoccurring? Why keep doing this to her if you’re not trying to say anything about it? What is the commentary here? It has no impact on the story or her character. Again, I don’t want her to be tormented, but just see some impact--even just some moments of rage where she notices the pattern of being creeped on and why the hell should she have to deal with this just because she's a teenage girl, maybe even wondering if there've been women who weren't able to escape those guys, would make it clear that the author was actually thinking and taking this seriously, that he has a point he’s trying to make. If she was affected in a subtle way—perhaps starting to get slightly tense around men and Okarun notices and she’s able to vent about it to him a bit, and it becomes a moment that deepens their bond—that would make it matter too. That might not make it any less frustrating, but I’d at least see the point.

As it stands, the series is just interested in it being a plot device, an excuse to see Momo’s underwear, maybe something a little edgy to threaten her with because how else are we going to imperil our female character.

And that cheapens the parts where it tries to take sexual assault seriously , and make us feel bad about it through these tragic backstories. It feels so disingenuous when contrasted with how casually the same series uses SA as a plot device. And it makes me firmly feel that the series is very "no thoughts head" empty when it comes to this subject. I’ve heard arguments the series is trying to say something deep by adding violence against women to myths that had nothing to do with that—but I’m sorry, seeing how the series is so not deep with how it handles the same thing happening to Momo, I can't say I agree. It knows violence against women is bad. It consistently frames SA as bad and something shitty people do, and that’s unfortunately not a given for anime, so I appreciate that. But I don’t think it’s trying to say too much beyond that.

I won’t go so far as say that the sad backstory to wring tears from the audience. They’re still effective, they’re still beautiful scenes, and I do believe the series empathizes with these characters. It’s just clear the show isn’t really committed to these themes as it goes on.

Man, I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to spend paragraphs and paragraphs analyzing SA in this series. I’d rather spend this review talking about how cute Okarun and Momo are, how fun episode 4 was, what an absolute goober Aira is, and so on. I don’t want this stuff to disrupt a perfectly fun show. But. Shonen Jump gotta Shonen Jump.

Another thing to note is that, SA aside, the series loves having its characters lose their clothes. There’s some gender parity when it comes to this, Okarun gets naked a lot too, so the girls don’t feel singled out, and a lot of it is played for humor. While fanservice is doubtless part of the goal, it’s not super gross in how it presents their bodies most of the time—everyone looks like a human being, there aren’t really closeups of particular body parts, etc—but the fact the characters are teenagers is sure to put some people off. I think its fine for teens to get horny series primarily aimed at them though, and I guess I’m just so numb to anime fanservice in my old age it doesn’t bother me too much but I can see it bothering someone else. Also, as you can guess from the “Okarun lost his balls” plot point—there’s some cheeky sexual humor too. Dandadan is part action show, part rom-com and part sex comedy, basically.

Despite all I’ve mentioned, I still enjoy the series and will continue to watch it. I love Momo so much I got a plushie of her in Japan after all, and the series is just a really fun time. I’ve just very much adjusted my expectations as far as sexual assault and treatment of Momo goes. I'll brace myself now, as much as I shouldn’t have to.

So yeah, if you want a fun battle shonen with cool fight scenes and cute romance, featuring a lot of kickass ladies, go for Dandadan! Just keep my warnings in mind.